How do you follow an episode like “Toast Can’t Never be Bread Again,” the brilliant finale to Orange Is the New Black‘s fourth season? This is the peril of ending on such a high note; it’s no surprise that Dexter took a serious dip in quality after its gut-wrenching fourth-season finale. “Riot FOMO” picks up exactly where Orange left off, but it can’t maintain that intensity, and ends up being an object lesson in being careful what you wish for.
The episode, while underwhelming and a little on the nose, isn’t a disaster by any means. Director Andrew McCarthy (The Blacklist, Halt and Catch Fire) does a good job bringing us back into the action, and Daya holding Humphrey at gunpoint is pleasingly tense from the start. It’s also confusing, in a good way; everyone is yelling at Daya to shoot him, Maria wants the gun, Humphrey starts telling her, in Spanish, a story from his childhood in an attempt to humanize himself (Daya gets her best line in ages when she snaps, “I don’t fuckin’ speak Spanish!”). There’s a lot going on, and when Daya does finally shoot Humphrey – in the leg – it feels anticlimactic (especially in comparison to the way Taystee stormed through the halls last season and incited the riot in the first place through sheer righteous indignation). However, it does a good job of setting things in motion for the rest of the hour.
A full hour of a prison riot sounds like it should be incredibly intense, and at times “Riot FOMO” comes close to that, but for the most part the show hews closer towards black comedy when it should embrace the bleakness that made season four such a standout. McCarthy tries for Altmanesque set pieces, but too often the comedy in Jenji Kohan’s script undercuts the tension, and no one seems all that concerned about the riot.
Luschek (who is unarmed) is calmly eating nuts; Soso is more concerned with self-pity than with finding a hiding place (in the episode’s most unnecessary scene by far); Humphrey has learned nothing and continues to be an asshole, calling Sophia a “fireman tranny” while she’s trying to stop him from bleeding to death; and none of the guards seem particularly alarmed, even when they’re being rounded up and held hostage. Rather than coming off as surreal, all this just makes you question the intelligence of everyone involved – and the memory. There’s a frankly confounding scene where Maritza talks about kicking Humphrey, smiling and laughing like it’s a game. She, and the show, seems to have forgotten that this man made her eat a live baby mouse; being that close to her torturer should engender anything but laughs. At least it shouldn’t be played for laughs.
Kohan’s script is too obvious by half for a show this smart. After Alex and Piper find Linda Ferguson hiding in a restroom stall, another inmate wants her high heels, only to be told that high heels “represent the oppression of the patriarchy.” Orange prides itself on defying expectations through characterization, and that is maybe the least subtle line in the show’s history. It sounds like a line, and a scene, that someone would write if they were trying to make fun of Orange Is the New Black.
Less forgivable, though, is Kohan’s questionable references to other mass shootings, which characters drop all the time throughout “Riot FOMO.” (One of the inmates picks up McCullough’s radio and explains that he was the one firing the pistol.) Characters name-drop Aurora, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Charleston, San Bernardino, and Fort Hood, and it comes off as tasteless every time. It’s not funny, even in a dark sense, and if Kohan was aiming for social commentary her script falls short. It doesn’t make for any sort of trenchant insight to say that America has a problem with mass shootings. Even more obvious is the script’s critique of the prison system, a case made pretty eloquently by Orange‘s fourth season (sorry to keep going back to that well, but season four of Orange Is the New Black was really fucking good). Linda changes into an inmate disguise, sniffs her shirt, and asks “Is this vomit?” Piper explains it’s prison slop, and adds that it’s “an easy mistake to make.” We get it, the food at Litchfield is bad and treating human beings as commodities only ever ends in the erasure of identity and dignity. If only that same point had been made over thirteen tremendous episodes last year.
What I do appreciate about “Riot FOMO” is that everyone is given something to do, which allows for some nice character beats. While an hour-long riot sounds entertaining, in the end it turns out it’s more interesting to see the minutiae of a hostile takeover. There’s some fun business involving Nichols and Morello having to sweet-talk their way into the medical supply room, and of Doggett and Boo taking over the commissary. And for whatever reason, I really liked that Blanca took it upon herself to padlock all the doors shut; we didn’t see her much throughout the hour, but the show gave a good reason for that. Best of all these scenes is Taystee, Cindy, Watson, and Alison storming Caputo’s office and forcing him to record a statement reflecting the truth of Poussey’s death. (In keeping with everyone’s blase attitude towards the riot, Caputo seems more annoyed than concerned about it.) McCarthy shoots all of these in close-up, and the episode never moves outside, which is a smart and effective way to underline the fact that these women have just made their prison even smaller.
Season premieres either enforce or reestablish the status quo of the show, and I’m happy that “Riot FOMO” went the latter route. It wasn’t the most solid premiere this show has ever had, but it laid the groundwork for what could be an intense season. Throughout the episode, Maria is trying to wrest control of the uprising away from Daya, and at the end someone hits Daya over the head and takes her gun. I said a riot would be interesting, but it looks like Orange Is the New Black is setting the stage for a war.
A Few Thoughts
- Nichols and Morello are fun together, but Nichols is constantly trying to sleep with her straight friend, which adheres to a pretty ugly stereotype about gay people. Not a fan.
- “I shot a guard in the dick! Almost. This shit got serious kickback.”
- Piper and Alex were very annoying here – Piper is horny and Alex isn’t, how hilarious is that? – but I won’t judge them too harshly because the idea of them shepherding Linda Ferguson around is potentially a fun one.
3.5/5
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